Equiteq advises Aecus Limited on its sale to The Hackett Group Inc.

May 2017

Equiteq, the consulting sector M&A specialist, is pleased to announce the sale of its long-term client, Aecus Limited, to The Hackett Group Inc. Equiteq acted as exclusive financial advisor to Aecus Limited and its shareholders on the sale of the business having previously worked with the company for over 8 years in a strategic advisory capacity. The transaction closed on April 7, 2017.

Aecus is an award-winning European consultancy that helps clients optimize business process outsourcing (BPO), IT outsourcing (ITO) and robotic process automation (RPA) through benchmarking and implementation consulting. At the foundation of Aecus’ value offering is more than 15 years of quantitative market data on BPO and ITO agreements. This data is expected to be highly complementary to The Hackett Group’s broad expertise in global business services, and The Hackett Group’s data and insights regarding best practices to drive process-level efficiency and regional labour rates.

Equiteq advised the Aecus owners throughout their growth to exit journey. The initial engagement created the value growth plan and a prioritized development roadmap with distinct targets to support valuation, timeframe and strategic attractiveness. This detailed preparation, growth journey support and finally M&A advice ultimately underpinned the attractive exit to Hackett.

Discussing the transaction, Aecus Managing Director Rick Simmonds commented, “We are really excited by this – joining The Hackett Group represents a fantastic move forward for Aecus. The strength of The Hackett Group’s brand combined with the breadth of complementary services will enable us to serve our clients even more effectively and will provide our people with greater professional opportunities.”

David Dungan, The Hackett Group Vice-Chairman and COO, said of the transaction: “The Aecus acquisition is expected to significantly enhance our ability to support clients’ efforts in RPA, which is a critical element… There’s tremendous synergy between our two organizations.” And David Ketchin, Managing Director of The Hackett Group’s European Practice, added: “We are delighted to welcome the respected Aecus team into our practice. This enhances the value that we can deliver to our clients at any stage of the outsourcing lifecycle.”

Regarding Equiteq’s role in the transaction, Rick Simmonds stated: “We’ve been working with the Equiteq team for many years. They’ve provided excellent advice throughout the long relationship, initially helping us understand and optimize the key value drivers in our business and more recently guiding us through the sale process and ensuring the desired outcome with Hackett was achieved.”

Ed Groome, Director, based in Equiteq’s London office, commented, “Completing this transaction is a great example of how Equiteq works with owners and optimizes the growth journey. It’s a great case study of how we support owners and meet their objectives by advising on the optimum value development plan and facilitate transactions through international M&A processes. In Hackett, we achieved a very satisfactory outcome for all Aecus shareholders and ensured the business is well placed to continue its growth.”